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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078537">Nobody to Somebody</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ'>SQ (proteinscollide)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Feel Special - TWICE (Music Video), TWICE (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, IN SPACE!, On the Run, Secret Identity, Undercover, intergalactic PI</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:49:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,281</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30078537</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/proteinscollide/pseuds/SQ</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sana's been chasing a ghost across planets but finding Dahyun means more than just a debt to repay.<br/>(A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ymwOvzhwHs">Feel Special MV</a> AU)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kim Dahyun/Minatozaki Sana</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>New Year's Resolutions 2021</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nobody to Somebody</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks as always to popliar (littlerhymes) for beta reading, listening to me whine, and getting me to finish writing fics for once.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It’s always wet on this dumb planet. Sana has been here for five weeks and she can’t remember a time when there hasn’t been the slick shine of rain on the ground after her shift, reflecting the neon glow that lights up this neighbourhood. Coupled with the near constant night and cold, Sana feels like she hasn’t been at peace a single moment since she landed. </p><p>The one benefit of this discomfort is the sharp desire to get past this, to find an out, before she does something stupid. It’s what drives her to put on her sparkliest dress, a silver shimmy of a thing, and pull on those red boots that are so impractical in this weather but give her that extra little kick. It’s just enough to urge her down those damp, dark streets to the Paris Cat jazz club one more time. Surely tonight, finally, will bring her what she’s been looking for. </p><p>But hours later, after another fruitless shift of charming clueless men who can’t keep their eyes and hands off her long enough to hear her questions, let alone answer them, Sana sighs as she drags on her jacket and lets herself out the side door. A second later, she swears long and loud as an overflowing gutter drops a shock of rainwater over her, washing away her last vestige of patience and resolve. </p><p>“I fucking give up!” she yells at the bucketing rain and slumps to the ground in front of the nearest doorway, furious with herself, with this stupid place, with the choices that brought her here. She looks up from glaring at the splashes of mud ruining her boots, just as a car rounds the corner and lights up the street ahead. That’s when Sana sees her in person for the first time, coming out of the darkness. </p><p>She’s been chasing a ghost this whole time, looking in the shadows for someone trying to hide. But here she is, lit up before her, Dahyun in a periwinkle blue jacket with silver sparkles, under a pink and peach and cream umbrella like an ice-cream swirl. There’s a faint smile on her face, in her eyes, as she moves calmly against the crowd still pushing through the rain at this late hour, right up to the steps Sana is sitting on. </p><p>“What are you doing out here in the rain? Come in, we’re open.” Dahyun says warmly, reaching out a hand. </p><p>***</p><p>“You owe him a favour,” the goon sneered as he leaned across the table into Sana’s space. “And he’s even bothering to ask nicely. So what’s with the reluctance?”</p><p>Sana held her face still, holding back the urge to smack him across the face. He’s not wrong - she did owe his boss a favour, distasteful as the fact was, and she wasn't well-established enough to cross someone with that amount of power in this corner of the galaxy (again). </p><p>“I don’t even know why he’s bothering to ask you again, after your failure last time,” the lackey continued. “All you had to do was locate the missing girl for Miss Jihyo, and yet after all that searching you couldn’t deliver.”</p><p>Sana dug her fingernails deeper into her palm under the table. The truth was, she didn’t fail; but she hadn’t been sure about sharing the information. The boss’ ward with the haughty and cold demeanour, watching over and over the image of a beautiful woman flashing across the million screens with anxious, hungry eyes. Sana had felt a chill down her spine at the scene before her, felt deep in her core that something was wrong here. </p><p>But a job was a job, so she’d asked around and planet hopped until she’d found a rumour that led to a whisper that led to a tip that on a dark moon, in the middle of a dark lake, there was a young woman hidden from prying eyes in a crystal palace. And Sana had felt it again, the misgiving about the request made of her, and who she was giving the information to. </p><p>So she’d lied, and now she owed someone powerful a favour for his forgiveness, and the longer he held that favour over her the more she felt she had made a mistake somewhere;  itched for the missing piece of the puzzle that would let her fix it and get out from under this mess.</p><p>“Fine,” she snapped. “I’ll do it. What am I looking for this time?”</p><p>The goon smiled, and Sana shivered. “You have to find the key. Find the key, return it, and everything will be fine.”</p><p>***</p><p>It’s amazing what a difference a month can make.</p><p>Sana quits her job at the Jazzy Cat, to serve customers in the diner instead, to work with Dahyun by her side. Sure, even here men flirt with her still - but in the light of the cheerily painted room, with Dahyn’s knowing grin at the other end of the counter, it’s easy to laugh it off with a lightheartedness Sana has never felt before. </p><p>And after the customers leave, stomachs full with hot, strong coffee or a slice of the housemade pies; after the sun comes up and Dahyun flips the the sign on the door to closed - Sana only tastes sweetness and joy at the end of her day, as Dahyun holds her close against the door of the storeroom to kiss her and murmur happiness into her ear. </p><p>“Stay with me,” Dahyun had said at the end of the night they first met, after Sana had spilt the emptiness that had been haunting her. “Stay with me,” Dahyun had urged, holding her hand over the table, eyes bright and honest. Sana followed her home, and stayed. </p><p>It’s amazing what a difference a month can make. Now, on cold and wet nights (as most of them are on this planet, this planet where she’s found Kim Dahyun, in the flesh) Sana walks home dry, arm tucked into the crook of Dahyun’s or around her waist, the two of them giggling as they slosh through the streets as dawn starts to colour the sky, both sheltered under that beacon of an umbrella. </p><p>And even if Sana gets rained on - well - there’s Dahyun tugging her along with her hand in Sana’s, there’s Dahyun wrapped around her under the spray of hot water in the shower when they get home, there’s Dahyun sliding against her in bed, their bed, her mouth wicked and heated on her skin. And Sana - she tastes contentment in return, the feeling of home in the shape of Dahyun’s lips and her smile and everything she offers to Sana freely.</p><p>It’s amazing what a difference a month can make. It’s enough for Sana to forget that finding isn’t the end of her mission, something she only remembers when his goons walk into the dine, cold-eyed, ready to collect on that debt. </p><p>***</p><p>“What if we’d met before this,” Sana had said out of the blue, the first night they slept together. </p><p>They had been lying in bed, Dahyun’s bed in her cosy apartment a short walk away from the diner, where Sana had been sheltering for days now as a guest, as a spy.  That night, after the shift at the diner, when Sana had followed Dahyun home, they’d drunk champagne in the kitchen, just because. And then Sana had crawled into Dahyun’s lap as the sun rose and kissed her because of the fizz in her bloodstream, the desire buzzing under her skin. </p><p>Dahyun wove their fingers together and kissed Sana lightly over her knuckles, one by one. “What if our paths had crossed before?”</p><p>Even in this happy state, Sana was on guard, years of experience keeping her voice even when she replied, “Could we have? Who were you before you came here, before you took on the diner?”</p><p>“Nobody,” Dahyun answered. “Just another cog toiling away in the system. Doing the same thing day in day out, thinking all was well.”</p><p>“But it wasn’t?” </p><p>Dahyun had pinned her with a sharp glance then, before her eyes softened and she leaned over for a kiss, as if a reward for being listened to, for being heard. </p><p>“No, it wasn’t,” she said. “Because the system kept people locked up where they shouldn’t be.”</p><p>Sana had swallowed her gasp in time, but this - this was the closest she’d come to that final piece of the puzzle, of confirming that Dahyun was exactly who she’d been looking for.</p><p>“So you left to be free?” she asked.</p><p>“Yes and no,” Dahyun said. She paused, then added, “I - I found something that - that wasn’t mine to know, but would help many people. A key to their freedom, more than mine.”</p><p>“Do you still have it?” Sana asked. She injected hesitancy into her voice, as if she wasn’t sure of what she was asking about, even as she could hear the insistent thrumming in her ears, the adrenaline rush of hitting the jackpot. “The - the key?”</p><p>Dahyun smiled, her face open and trusting. “The key isn’t an object,” she explained. “It’s information.”</p><p><em>Return the key and everything will be fine.</em> But how do you take back knowledge and keep it hidden forever more? </p><p>You can’t, Sana realised, and felt her insides shrink at that revelation, at the ugly truth of her mission. </p><p>***</p><p>The goon grabs her arm - not tight enough to hurt, but a warning - and Sana thinks about laughing it off, Sana thinks about telling the truth - but who does she owe the truth to?</p><p>Across the room, Dahyun looks at her, and Sana realises from the steady, patient look in her eyes that she knows the truth, that she’s always known. Why Sana is here. Who and what the goons are really here for. </p><p>And Sana makes her choice. She closes her eyes for a second, then <em>moves</em>, so quickly that they don’t see it coming, and there’s a horrible, satisfying crack, then a strangled shriek, as the goon who had a hold of her lets go. </p><p>It’s a wreck when she’s done. The customers have fled; tables broken, chairs overturned, crockery shattered into a million pieces. Sana stares glumly at the two men, unconscious, on the floor before her. </p><p>Sana hears movement behind her, the only person brave enough to have stayed through the fight. </p><p>“Sorry about the mess,” she says, as lightly as she can, hoping against hope Dahyun can’t hear the quaver in her voice. “I’ll clean up, and then I’ll - I’ll take out the trash.” </p><p>There’s a long silence. Sana won’t - can’t - turn around and see the betrayal she’s sure is in Dahyun’s eyes. She wants to hear Dahyun tell her to stay, one more time, but she knows she doesn’t deserve it. </p><p>“You were too good to be true,” Dahyun says finally. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Sana says again.</p><p>“Why are you sorry?” Dahyun says softly, her voice closer. Then her arms wrap around Sana from behind, her head pillowed against her back, and Sana can’t hold the tears in anymore. “You don’t have to be sorry.  You chose to keep me safe. You didn’t tell them where I was, I know you didn’t.”</p><p>“But now it’s all ruined,” Sana cries. “You were at peace here and I led them here and now I’ve ruined it all.” </p><p>“You just reminded me that I was only hiding,” Dahyun says. “And that’s not a life. That’s not why I took the key in the first place.”</p><p>She looks down at the slumped over bodies at their feet - still breathing, still out cold, but for how long? “After you - what will you do? Where will you go next?” Dahyun asks carefully. </p><p>“What are you going to do?” Sana counters, stalling. She doesn’t know what her next step should be, except that she doesn’t want to let Dahyun go. </p><p>“I’m going to see the smartest girl I know,” Dahyun says wryly. “She’s almost as good as you are at finding things where they shouldn’t be.”</p><p>“There’s more people in hiding,” Sana says, sure enough that it doesn’t come out as a question, then starts, another piece of the puzzle seemingly falling in place. “The girl in the crystal palace, is she - I need to go warn her! That he’s still looking for her.”</p><p>Dahyun frowns. “Nayeon is safe where she is,” she says. “You need to rescue Jihyo.”</p><p>“His ward? But she’s the one who - “</p><p>“Tell Jihyo I sent you. Listen to her story.” Dahyun says. “I know with your smarts and hers you’ll finally be able to get her out of his clutches, and then she can lead you to some of the others.”</p><p>“Power in numbers,” Sana says slowly. </p><p>“There’s more of us, trapped in situations that aren’t of our making,” Dahyun says, steel now in her voice as she gathers her thoughts. “Maybe there’s enough of us now that it doesn’t have to be like that. Maybe when there’s enough of us we'll be brave enough now to make use of the key.”</p><p>She slides her hand down Sana’s arm, entwines their fingers again, and Sana blinks back tears at the farewell it feels like. </p><p>“That’s what he’s always been afraid of. Why he had to keep us all apart,” Dahyun says, quiet, thoughtful. Then, in a sure and steady voice, “And that’s why we have to make sure he doesn’t win, that we find each other again.”</p><p>Sana closes her eyes, tips her head forward, and kisses Dahyun desperately, with all the happiness of the last month in her mind, in her intent. </p><p>“You promise?” she says, and hears the yes in every moment of the kiss she receives in return. </p><p>END</p>
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